


one look is all it takes

by jamesbuchanan



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Pining, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 19:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11132829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesbuchanan/pseuds/jamesbuchanan
Summary: By Bucky’s second deployment, he’s seen England, France, Belgium, and Italy. Each trip he’d managed to snag a postcard to send back to Steve. He’d write about what he’d seen, the sights, the beauty. What he fails to add in is the fact that he imagines seeing all these placeswithSteve.





	one look is all it takes

**Author's Note:**

> personally, i blame tim o'brien

By Bucky’s second deployment, he’s seen England, France, Belgium, and Italy. Each trip he’d managed to snag a postcard to send back to Steve. He’d write about what he’d seen, the sights, the beauty, and most definitely the alcohol he was able to get a taste of, all for Steve to read about. What Bucky fails to add in is the fact that he imagines seeing all these places with Steve. That he imagines how happy he’d be, how nice he’d sketch the outlines of the cities he’s seen, or even how, under the rarity of a moonlit sky, he imagines Steve’s hand in his, or Steve’s lips moving up and down his neck.

These are the things he doesn’t say. He pushes the nagging feeling in his gut down and tucks those thoughts away in the back of his brain. He sticks to details, keeps his letters lively, and picks the nicest postcard he can get his hands on. And if he happens to sign off telling Steve he’s always his in a covert manner, well that never hurt anyone.

When Steve writes back it’s with a tone of innocent curiosity. He asks little questions about the sights and jokes about how many girls Bucky must’ve had swooning over him. (When Bucky reads it he laughs all the same, but somewhere deep down he knows that it’s a callous joke.) The thick of his letters would come off as boing to any other fella, but to Bucky, it’s just as lively. Steve lets him know what’s going on around town, tries his best to keep him firm footed in Brooklyn’s constant loop. Anthony’s getting married to Crazy Joe’s sister; the bakery caught fire the other morning; the USO girls are coming to town again; and even an excited little _and Buck, I almost forgot to tell you, I got a small job down at the cinema! They want me to make posters for their new showings, isn’t that great?_ (When Bucky reads this he smiles to himself. _Yeah, he thinks to himself, it sure is swell Steve._ )

Bucky eats up every word of Steve’s letters, re-reads them when he’s by himself in his bunk before the lights go out. Sometimes, if Bucky’s lucky, there’ll be a small drawing placed neatly between the folds of the letters, with Steve’s small signature in the upper lefthand corner. And if Bucky’s real lucky, he might even get a photograph. While it’s a rare occurrence, he holds it close to his heart. It’s not often he can sweeten Steve up enough to earn something like that. It leaves a warm feeling in his chest when the rewards finally do come. 

In the morning, before he leaves for an early patrol, he tucks the small stack of letters in the trunk at the foot of his bunk. They rest at the bottom corner with a small cloth placed over it for safe keeping. Having these things, these small pieces of Steve, it’s one of the only things keeping him sane out there.

At night, he dreams of Brooklyn. Of car horns and street lamps, of makeshift clotheslines and the crisp smell of the city’s nighttime air. His eyes slide closed and he can imagine he’s back home, under thin, cotton sheets with a frail chest pressed against his own. His hand slides down lower, past his shorts, and he imagines not his hand, but another. In his head it’s Steve’s lips on his, Steve’s hand on him, Steve’s voice in his ear. When he stifles his release in a bitten palm, he’s still imagining Steve on top of him, staring at him with a look like he _knows_.

Bucky doesn’t know what it means. It happens every other night, and he lets it happen. He craves it almost. He tries to blame it on the fact that it’s been months since he’s been that close to Steve. But every single time, just after he’s finished, he imagines Steve and he imagines that look, and somehow he knows that what he’s feeling is more than a touch starved homesickness.

There’s a name for how he feels for Steve, he knows there is. Bucky’s afraid to say it out loud, god forbid he even think it.

When it happens, it’s in a moment that’s so subtle, yet so dramatic. It’s oxymoronic in a way that makes Bucky’s stomach clench. 

It’s a dull, foggy day in the middle of spring. He’s out with a few other guys patrolling the perimeter since an upcoming mission got cancelled. It’d been drizzling on and off and the smell of wet soil and gunpowder is stuck up his nose. There’d been a small fight just a few yards out from the base, where Bucky’d been able to watch. Hunched over is the one guy that’d remained after the fight had been broken up. He searches frantically in the dirt for something.

When Bucky gets closer, he realizes the guy on his knees is the insomniac that sleeps in the bunk next to his. He’d oftentimes wake Bucky up in the middle of the night and tell Bucky about his girl back home until his speech slurred and he fell back asleep.

He stops beside him, patting him on the back. “What are you doing, O’Malley?”

O’Malley turns his head up to quickly acknowledge Bucky. “Fucking Anello and Johnson thought it’d be funny to take the picture of my baby and fuckin’— They tossed it in the dirt somewhere out here. I can’t _find_ it.” He’s panting, and Bucky can see the way his chest is heaving. He crouches down and rubs the guy’s back.

“Don’t worry about it, pal,” Bucky reassures, watching as the man continues to search the ground around him. “Just ask your girl for another picture. ‘m sure it’ll be better than the first.”

“That’s the problem, Buchanan, she’s won’t send me another one,” he’s frantic. His hands are caked in dirt. “She’s not even my _girl_ anymore. She—”

Whatever else the O’Malley tells him, Bucky doesn’t hear. He’s already tuned out and world’s away— back over the Atlantic in a poorly ventilated apartment next to a boy he thinks he loves. He’s not sure if the way his heart grows tender and soft at the mere thought of him—at the sound of a name even remotely close to Steve—is love. If the way his eyes turn fond at the letters and drawings he receives, means more than pure adoration, but rather immense affection. He wonders if it’s love from the way his chest aches just a bit at denying he has a sweetheart back home, when all he can see behind his eyelids at night are a blonde mop of hair, baby blues, and soft lips turned up in a smirk. To keep his mind away from war and it’s casualties, he thinks of this.

Tucked away in a sewn in pocket inside his uniform is a picture of Steve. It’s been cut out from a larger strip of photos taken at a photo booth three years before this entire mess. Idly, he knows, Steve is working on sending him a more updated photograph. He mentioned it weeks ago, and while he thought Steve ignored him the last time he asked, he couldn’t have been more wrong. (In his last letter, he had casually added in: _don’t worry about that picture, Buck. I’m working on it._ )

His fingers itch to take it out and look at it, but he knows that’s the wrong move here. He’s supposed to be listening to the guy with his hands dug in the wet soil he’s standing on. He’s supposed to feel bad that his friend lost the one good thing he had going for him; but he can’t.

It’s hard to think of anything besides the fact that he’s in love with his best friend. He is in love with Steve. He thinks that he has for a long time, but he’s amounted it to knowing him through childhood, to having to take care of him all of his life, and for constantly looking out for him. If he knew that every look, every touch, every carefully chosen word spoken between them had meant this, Bucky would have went after it a long time ago.

He thinks Steve knows. If the look he imagines behind his eyelids is anything to go off of, Steve knows and he probably has for a long time. This changes everything. When Bucky gets home, he’s gonna let Steve know he finally gets it. He’s gonna tell him he loves him, he’s gonna catch that look in his eye, and he’s never going to let him go.

He wishes he’d seen it sooner, but somehow, looking back on it, the signs were all there. It’s in Steve’s words, his drawings, his pictures, and all the promises that lie underneath. Back home it was in all the touches and kisses and brushes of hands and shoulders. No matter how small the gesture, it was all there. Steve’s love was in the constant need to do his part; to fix Bucky dinner after a long shift at the docks; to let him sleep in on a much needed Saturday morning; to get a hand down Bucky’s trousers without having to ask; to leave the newspaper open on the kitchen table to the article he knew would pique Bucky’s interest. It was all there, all done with adoration. Bucky, unknowingly, had done it back in his own way, and Steve had taken all he could get with an insatiable hunger.

By now he realizes O’Malley’s been trying to get his attention. The sound of Bucky’s own name rings in his ears. He shakes his head and tilts his head down to look at the guy. 

“Sorry,” he says, “what were you saying?”

O’Malley rolls his eyes. “Oh, glad you’re back from space. I was askin’ if you wanted to help me look for this damn picture.”

Bucky crouches down next to him, places a hand on his shoulder. “Pal, I know this might be hard to hear, but if she’s not your girl anymore, maybe you’re better off not finding it.”

He feels O’Malley tense up under his hand and turn to his head to give him an incredulous look. “Y’know, I really thought you’d understand. I guess I was wrong.”

Confusion is all over Bucky’s face. “What do you mean I’d ‘understand’?”

“Are all you New Yorkers really that dense?”

“Hey—“

“If you thought you were bein’ discreet, you were way off. Don’t think I don’t know you got a girl back home. I see the way you turn to mush over the letters you get.”

Bucky’s stunned into silence. It’s not like he was trying to hide anything, but he didn’t realize he was giving off the impression that he _was._

“I just thought— That picture is the only thing that’s giving me a fighting chance. I look at her and it’s like I know I can go home again. You get that?”

The ache in Bucky’s chest only proves that he knows exactly what this guy’s talking about. He misses Steve like crazy. One look at his letters, a drawing, that photo tucked in his uniform, and he realizes he’s gonna give it all he’s got to get back home. That’s what grounds him, in the same way that O’Malley’s old girl grounds him.

The gears in Bucky’s brain finally start turning again. “Yeah, I do. You’re right.”

By then the guy has stopped digging around in the dirt. His fingernails are practically black and besides, their watch is over. He must deem his search over, and when he does, Bucky helps him up. They stand with their hands in a tight grasp for a moment. The guy looks up at him with a smile. “Now I’m thinkin’ I was wrong about you, Buchanan. Whoever you’ve got back home must’ve turned you soft a long time ago.”

The thing is, he’s not wrong. Steve’s had him wrapped around his finger since they met in the schoolyard when he was six years old, saving Steve from losing a tooth from some first grade bullies. That first encounter only manifested itself into a devotion that only grew stronger over the years. And Bucky _sees_ that now, sees it clear as day. 

He huffs a laugh and turns to walk back to base. O’Malley follows him back.

Luck, or love—however one wishes to call it—comes in strange ways. This isn’t to say problems get solved at the drop of a hat. At night, O’Malley continues to talk about the girl that’s no longer his. He says he’s trying to get her mama to send a new photograph without her knowing. Bucky laughs softly, tells him to keep trying. In a way, it’s a new reason for the guy to come home. To prove to whoever stopped waiting for him that she didn’t need a safe bet; that he was the safest she had. It eases the conscience before, and possibly after, combat.

In the meantime, Bucky gets letters and small things Steve can spare here and there like cigarettes or chocolate. A new picture comes in, one of Steve in their apartment. He explains to Bucky that the granddaughter of the old lady on the first floor offered to come up and take it for him. Bucky’s heart melts when he sees it and now he’s beginning to get used to it. He knows he loves Steve. He won’t deny it and he’ll hold it close to his heart. It’s a new resolve, a new reason to keep himself from getting killed out there.

One look is all it takes and whether it’s Steve’s gaze behind his eyelids, or his own soft eyes staring at a polaroid in secret, he knows it’ll be okay.


End file.
